At Serpentine North, Amar Kanwar turns film into a space for memory and reflection

From September 23rd, 2026 to January 31st, 2027, Serpentine North will host a major solo exhibition by New Delhi-based artist and filmmaker Amar Kanwar, bringing three works together across documentary, visual essay and multi-screen installation. Moving through histories of displacement, violence and political upheaval, Kanwar considers how film can offer a more attentive way of looking at memory and the world around us.

For more than two decades, Kanwar has developed a lyrical moving-image language rooted in the histories and social realities of the Indian subcontinent. His practice traces the legacies of decolonisation and the Partition of India and Pakistan, while addressing questions of justice, memory, power and human connection.

From ‘Such a Morning’ to ‘The Charcoal Man’

Spanning nearly a decade, the exhibition brings together three works. Such a Morning (2017) follows a mathematics professor who suddenly stops recognising the world around him, retreating into darkness and contemplation. Through fragmented images, sounds and text, the film reflects on perception, knowledge and the struggle to make sense of a fractured reality.

The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023) expands Kanwar’s cinematic language into a multi-screen installation, bringing landscapes, images and fragments of personal and collective history into a space shaped by memory, loss and political reality.

The exhibition’s centrepiece, The Charcoal Man (2026), is a new seven-screen installation premiering at Serpentine. Extending Kanwar’s long-standing interest in personal memory and historical violence, the work brings multiple moving images into dialogue, surrounding visitors with layered visual and sonic fragments.

Across the three works, Kanwar treats film as more than an image to watch: it becomes a space where histories, emotions and questions can remain open. The exhibition also continues Serpentine’s long relationship with the artist, who was included in Indian Highway at the institution 18 years ago.